iPod Shuffle Earbuds Contain Special Chip; It's Not a Big Deal

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iPod Shuffle Earbuds Contain Special Chip; It's Not a Big Deal

Over the weekend, some bloggers who discovered a chip inside the iPod Shuffle's earbuds speculated that Apple was crippling its latest media player to work only with certain headphones. While to an extent it's true — that the Shuffle only fully works with particular headphones — you actually can use any headphones in a pinch.

First things first, let's make something clear: The iPod Shuffle's hardware does not contain a physical button, apart from the switch (shown above) that turns the Shuffle off or on. Apple instead installed a three-button controller on the wire leading to the included earbuds; you squeeze this controller to adjust the volume and to skip forward or back through your playlist.

You can use any standard headphones to listen to music on the Shuffle, provided you've got a 1/8" plug. Gadget Lab's Danny Dumas tested the iPod Shuffle with a half-dozen brands of headphones in the newsroom, including both iPhone-compatible (four-lead) and standard (three-lead). Here's what we've discovered:

You can listen to music with any pair of headphones. Just plug them in and turn on the Shuffle.

To control the volume or skip forward and backward in the playlist, you need Shuffle-compatible headphones — the kind with the volume and skip controls embedded in the wire.

Apple's new earbuds contain a chip that enables them to work with the iPod Shuffle's controller mechanism. Third-party manufacturers must communicate with Apple if they want to integrate that chip in their headphones. Manufacturers must also pay a licensing fee if they wish to display an Apple logo or a message on the packaging stating their headphone controllers work with the Shuffle.

But that isn't so unusual. If you look at other iPods, you'll realize they feature the same dock connector for charging and utilizing accessories. Accessory manufacturers pay a licensing fee to state on their packaging that their gadgets work with iPods. Some chose not to pay that fee, causing confusion in the market, so Apple started "Made for iPod" and "Made for iPhone" programs to label which products were Apple-certified.

In theory, manufacturers will likely be able to reverse-engineer the Shuffle's controller chip, opt not to pay a licensing fee and cross their fingers that Apple won't take legal action.

Apple told BoingBoing Gadgets that the chip does not contain encryption or authentication capabilities, a statement that has been backed up by iPod accessory maker V-Moda.

Long story short, Apple simply made a chip that works for its product, and third-party manufacturers must communicate with the company to put that chip in their headphones, too. (Macworld has an interesting article including technical details on why this was necessary.)

This is "Much ado about nothing," as tech analyst Michael Gartenberg told Wired.com on the phone.